Case-Shiller: Seattle Home Prices Keep Edging Up

It’s a bit late, but we’re doing this anyway. Let’s have a look at the latest data from the Case-Shiller Home Price Index. According to November data that was released this morning, Seattle-area home prices were:

Up 0.6 percent November to DecemberUp 10.8 percent year-over-year.Up 7.3 percent from the July 2007 peak

Over the same period a year earlier prices were up 0.2 percent month-over-month and year-over-year prices were up 9.7 percent.

Seattle home prices as measured by Case-Shiller inched up once again to a new all-time high in December.

Here’s a Tableau Public interactive graph of the year-over-year change for all twenty Case-Shiller-tracked cities. Check and un-check the boxes on the right to modify which cities are showing:

Seattle’s rank for month-over-month changes shot up from #12 in November to #2 in December.

Hit the jump for the rest of our monthly Case-Shiller charts, including the interactive chart of raw index data for all 20 metro areas.

Seattle’s year-over-year price growth inched up from November to December, maintaining its position as the largest in the nation. In December, none of the twenty Case-Shiller-tracked metro areas gained more year-over-year than Seattle. From February through August Portland had been in the #1 slot above Seattle.

Here’s an update to the peak-decline graph, inspired by a graph created by reader CrystalBall. This chart takes the twelve metro areas whose peak index was greater than 175, and tracks how far they have fallen so far from their peak. The horizontal axis shows the total number of months since each individual city peaked.

In the 113 months since the price peak in Seattle prices are up 7.3 percent.

Lastly, let’s see how Seattle’s current prices compare to the previous bubble inflation and subsequent burst. Note that this chart does not adjust for inflation.

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About The Tim

Tim Ellis is the founder of Seattle Bubble. His background in engineering and computer / internet technology, a fondness of data-based analysis of problems, and an addiction to spreadsheets all influence his perspective on the Seattle-area real estate market.

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11 comments:

i don’t understand why that peak-decline map keeps getting posted. i mean, what house in king county would sell for only 7% above a 2007 price? we (unfortunately) bought at the end of 2006. conservative estimate is the price is about 44% higher than the purchase price, and that’s without a bidding war taking place.

It’s pretty simple. There are parts of King County that have gone up more than others. There are probably parts of King County that have not even reached the peak value yet, and that is even more likely true in Pierce and Snohomish Counties. When you factor all that in, the increase is not as significant as what you find in the areas of King County that went up a lot.

I would also note that the NWMLS median for November was only up about 3% from the peak value. So C-S is showing more of an advance for all three counties than what the NWMLS is showing for just King County.

One thing I’ve noticed lately is that some lower priced condos have gone up about 80% in the past three years. That doesn’t show up in the C-S numbers either. But we don’t have owners of such condos posting here: “My property has gone up over 80% in just a three years, why doesn’t Tim post a C-S graph that shows that? It’s BS.”

Percentage increase in median from NWMLS sources, but not compiled by or guaranteed by the NWMLS.

Zillow has prices up 9.2% over the peak for the Seattle Metro area, but 29% for Seattle itself. So somewhere in the metro area must be much lower to make that average out. Federal Way is still below the previous peak for example.

Auburn is probably an even better example than Federal Way. My neighbor’s house was valued at $257K according to Zillow at the peak (remember we’re talking about Auburn here, not Medina), and is now valued at $243K. Zillow loves my own house for whatever reason, but most of my neighbors are estimated at 5-10 percent below peak. Redfin deviates on given houses, but mirror this overall data.